


Arbutus and Primrose

by Sunnybone



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Swearing, because Felix, lmao I'm sorry there's just a lot of angst, there's art for this I'm cry, two very stupid boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnybone/pseuds/Sunnybone
Summary: After the war Felix comes down with a bad case of "coughing up flowers until you die because feelings are stupid". He refuses to admit to anyone that it's because of Sylvain.





	1. Yellow Hyacinth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GenericWeebUsername](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenericWeebUsername/gifts).

> I started this because I have no self-control and I finished it because of [Gorgeous art ](https://twitter.com/GlendaMorganArt/status/1181755589585596416)
> 
> Flower choices explained in the end note!

“It's _not_ Dimitri,” he grinds out, trying not to yell in frustration because goddess _fuck_ his throat is sore, and it's only going to get sorer even with the healers and medicine. “I've told you, I'm not _telling_ you.” Sylvain only watches him as Ingrid questions, and Felix's fists curl into the blanket across his lap on top of the bed.

“This started when he got engaged.” It hadn't. “Felix... you can tell _us_.” He can't.

Because it isn't Dimitri, and it had been happening long before he'd had his coughing fit outside the celebration for Dimitri and Byleth's engagement when Ingrid had caught him and he hadn't been able to shrug her off before she _knew_.

He looks at Ingrid, glances at Sylvain—his eyes brush across him at shoulder height, see the tense set of them—and his glance skitters away back to his fists in his lap.

“If it was Dimitri I would tell you, just to get you to drop it. _It's not Dimitri_.”

“You won't see him at all,” she says, her voice small, and he knows she thinks he's in love and fucking dying for Dimitri and, what, hurting himself further by keeping his distance? Fuck, he _wishes_ he could keep his distance, but he can't, he doesn't know if he's dying faster or slower for it but he _can't_. He tilts his head back and sighs.

“Because he would just.” Know, he would know, because even with all those years when they were broken, Dimitri _knows_ Felix. He would know, and he would tell them, and... “He wouldn't be able to fix it and he would be insufferable. I don't want him using my death as an excuse to wallow in stupid misplaced guilt, he has a whole damn continent to run. It has nothing to do with him, anyways.”

“Then... is it Byl—“

“_No_!” He finally shouts, and then he grimaces and his hand goes to his throat, and Ingrid is bringing him water and Sylvain—Sylvain is too close and he puts a hand on Felix's arm and Felix wants to scream but he settles for gulping the water.

“Felix,” Sylvain says, too close and too gentle, “who is it?”

“_Sylvain_,” he replies, eyes screwing shut, because _fuck_, ask a question get an answer, “please drop it.” Sylvain's hand on his arm is warm and he's too close and Felix wants to lean into him because he feels like shit and—he feels the tickle and the burn in his lungs and throat and he shoves Sylvain away but it doesn't stop him from coughing up one whole jonquil bloom, bright yellow and crumpled and bruised by its journey, soaked in his spit and flecked with blood in a way that looks deceptively delicate. He lets Ingrid press his face against her shoulder and she doesn't care that it smears her shirt with spit and tears he would blame on hacking his lungs up.

He's on whole fucking blossoms now.

“I'm tired,” he whispers, voice cracked and torn up, and he feels Ingrid flinch before she strokes a trembling hand over his hair. He allows it, because he's tired, and he's hurting, and they love each other and she's scared for him. He feels terrible because maybe he's going to be another Glenn, only worse because he's going slow instead of in one horrible blink.

Well. Not so slow, now, not when he's coughing up _whole fucking blossoms_.

+

The war is over, at least the official war—Felix knows there will be pockets of rebellion and little skirmishes, and no end of political bullshit to deal with. There's rebuilding to do, refugees to resettle, a whole damn economy to restore—so the war is over, but the work isn't.

But at least now they're not worrying every day about a battle, about who they might not see again. He can stop worrying so much about Ingrid and Sylvain and, yes, even Dimitri. There are Reconstruction Councils now instead of War Councils, and everyone is light even under the load of so much that must be done, because of the promise of a future.

Felix thinks it's all a bit sappy, but he isn't unaffected by it, finds himself...happy, even. His friends are alive, Dimitri is all but officially King, and Felix thinks maybe there is enough to be done that he can be satisfied returning home.

And then he goes out drinking with the others, and he doesn't drink much because he's always had embarrassingly low tolerance, so he's sober enough when he looks over at Sylvain and Ashe discussing something in low voices. Sylvain is smiling, a real fucking smile, not that shit he uses on girls, and he's gesturing with his hands and Felix...

Felix feels like he's going to throw up.

He pushes himself up from the table they're all at and makes his way out the door, and he winds up in the narrow alley around the side of the tavern, an itching, fluttering in his chest and throat as he coughs and coughs. And then he's spitting into the fist pressed over his mouth, and he stares down at his glove in shock.

Three fat, pink, camellia petals are plastered to his glove by spit.

He flicks them off of his glove in horror, and then he leans against the wall and he shakes and shakes because fuck, he can't keep telling himself he just has a stupid crush he'll get over, and fuck, he's going to fucking _die_.

+

“Are you sure?” the healer asks him, and Felix knows it's standard but he's still so fucking annoyed. At least they're alone, the gaggle of concerned friends finally banished so he can think for a second in peace.

He has options, the healers say, and Felix knows that. The problem is they're all shitty.

1) He can tell Sylvain his lungs are sprouting flowers that work their bloody way out of his mouth every time he thinks about him, really thinks about him, for more than a minute, because he's in love with him and has been for at least months but, probably, years. And then Sylvain will feel horribly guilty because he doesn't love Felix back, which means Felix is going to die.

He's already dying anyways, so why add yet one more thing he can't control for Sylvain to hate himself over?

2) He can have the whole damned infection removed, never have to feel a handful of petals flutter in his lungs and stop-up his airway, never have to peel petals off the roof of his mouth and the backs of his teeth while he tries not to vomit and make things worse, never have to rinse the taste of copper and perfume out of his mouth. Never be in love with Sylvain again, feel like he has discovered the answer to some incredible question because Sylvain smiled with his eyes, never even be fond of him, just like he's any other person Felix hardly cares about.

Sylvain loves him. Not the way Felix needs to be loved if he wants to not choke to death on blood and fucking flowers, but he does. Felix can count on his hands the number of people who have loved Sylvain his whole life, who have loved him and treated him well. It's a growing number, he thinks—he truly hopes. He can count on three fingers the number of people Sylvain has loved who used it to hurt him. He does not want to be the fourth finger, even if that means he has to die for it. It's fucking stupid, but Felix has always been stubborn.

3) He can tell Sylvain, cause him immense guilt when he turns Felix down, and then have the infection removed and turn him into nobody as far as Felix is concerned, which would probably destroy Sylvain.

This is a non-option, obviously.

4) He can die. He can just... quietly die. It's bullshit, and Felix hates it, but he can just stay here in a private room in the Royal Infirmary and let them ease him as he chokes to death on his own stupid, stupid feelings. None of them have to ever know it was over Sylvain. They'll all move on eventually—they had moved on from worse. The world will go on just fucking fine without him.

So he chooses option four.

+

Felix knows it's only a matter of time before someone finds out. It's not like you can hide something like the fact you're actively dying when you're in the middle of rebuilding a continent's worth of country. If he could be spared to fuck off back to Fraldarius and die quietly, if not peacefully, he would.

But of course he can't, none of the old Blue Lions class can be spared, all of them slotted naturally into roles of importance for rebuilding Fódlan, like they're indispensable. Felix wonders who they'll put in charge of managing Fraldarius lands when he's dead, he hasn't done up a will yet. Probably divvy it up, give a portion of it to Sylvain, he's already overseeing the North, and he's out in Gautier now cleaning up a spate of bandits even as Felix rides southeast to check _grain stores_—

He almost falls off his horse, the coughing fit comes so quick, and he's never been so glad that he rode ahead of his men as he is now, alone and clinging to the saddle-horn with one hand and coughing into the other.

He spits petals into his hand, but he gags and has to peel one long petal like tissue paper from the surface of his tongue. It's blush pink and speckled with a deep rose color, and there are a few more like it in his hand, just plain pale pink. Azalea, he thinks, they'd grown them in the greenhouse at Garreg Mach. He doesn't know what they mean, he's never known what any of the fucking things mean, he doesn't care about flowers.

But when he opens his hand, he realizes for the first time he's coughed up more than one, and he actually knows what the round orange petals are, the color of Sylvain's fucking hair. Nasturtium, for conquest and victory. The only flowers he was ever really partial to, and he throws his head back and laughs even though his throat burns and he feels more like sobbing.

+

“Here,” Sylvain says, soft, handing Felix a handkerchief to clean himself up, because he may be dying but he's not an invalid yet. Felix wipes his face with a hand that shakes and then swipes blue petals from his skin, lovely pale blue forget-me-nots, and he grimaces when Sylvain hands him a cup of water and holds out a basin. But he's grateful, and when he swishes water in his mouth and spits it out pink, two more blue petals slip to stick to the side of the basin.

“Thanks,” he says, settling back to lie down and stare at the ceiling, anywhere but at Sylvain, here every day and so, so patient and caring that Felix is sure it's killing him. “You don't have to stay. I know you hate this.” Of course he hates sitting here watching Felix die, Felix still can't look him in the eyes but he's heard him sniffle once or twice when he thought Felix was sleeping.

The others, the ones he allows to see him—Mercedes, Annette, Ashe, hell, even Dedue, just _anyone_ but Dimitri—can do this just as well as Sylvain can. He doesn't have to sit and watch Felix sweat and wheeze his way into his coffin. He doesn't have to take care of him, it's not his fault.

“I'm not going anywhere, Felix,” he says, and it's so fierce Felix turns onto his side and coughs up three purple hyacinth blooms; they sit like dark little stars slick with more blood than spit, and Sylvain helps him clean up this time because he's too exhausted to do anything but lie there and hate that even option four is dragging Sylvain down with him.

+

They find out, of course. It's just the timing of it that's so hilariously inconvenient.

There's a ball, the first one since Dimitri was crowned, and Felix doesn't want to go of course because when the fuck has he _ever_ cared about dancing and fancy dress, but he goes because they all suspect Dimitri's going to finally announce he's marrying Byleth and it's important to the two of them. And Felix, begrudgingly, loves them. If standing at the back of the room and scowling when anyone is dumb enough to approach him is what he has to do to survive showing his support, he will.

But it's such a fucking mistake, because of course Sylvain is there, too, and of course the bastard looks like an entire meal and Felix is starving for it, trying so hard not to devour him with his eyes every time he swans into view. It's a bad idea to think about him, and he manages, somehow, to focus on how much he hates being here and how long this whole fucking thing is taking.

And then everything gets quiet and he sees Dimitri and Byleth on the central stair, and they look so happy and healthy that Felix thinks he won't even be sorry to leave them, they'll be fine without him watching out for every little thing. And Dimitri makes his announcement, and everyone is applauding, and Felix lets his eyes wander across the crowd...

And that's really where he fucks up. Because balls mean beautiful women, and beautiful women are Sylvain's vice, and of course he's got some girl clinging to his arm and he's tilted his head to hear her say something, and all the way over here Felix can see him laugh and smile but it's the fake grin, it's the fucking fake grin and he'll still probably sleep with her even though he doesn't _like_ her—

He can't breathe. It's not a tickle or a flutter, it's like fucking hornets buzzing in his lungs, and he turns and pushes his way out through the balcony doors and almost slams himself against the wall for support, coughing and coughing into his hands until his vision gets spotty. Somewhere during an arm wraps around him, holds him up, and when he finally stops coughing and breathes ragged he finds himself sandwiched between the wall and Ingrid.

She looks scared, and he hasn't seen her scared since Sylvain threw himself into an axe in Derdriu saving Felix's life, and they had both thought he would die—she grips his wrists and holds up his hands, plastered with petals, and he doesn't have to fake surprise when he looks down at them.

He barely sees his gloves under the yellow petals, each one a little blunted spear-tip, and he thinks they are hyacinth—he's been looking at gardening books lately, and no one questioned it because Ashe's birthday was coming up. But it doesn't matter what kind of flower he's hacked up, it's not important, it's... he laughs, bewildered, because for the first time his hands are spotted with blood.

“Oh, _Felix_,” Ingrid says, and actually embraces him, and he knows that now everyone will know.

+

Sylvain pulls his chair up close to the edge of the bed when he sits down, and Felix wonders what he'll cough up today. He watches Sylvain's hands settle together on top of the blanket, twisting and squeezing, pressing his knuckles like he's trying to pop them. He's anxious, and Felix wonders if he's finally going to say goodbye. He feels the tiniest tickle, but nothing comes up, and that's nice.

“Felix,” he starts, and his tone almost makes Felix look him in the eyes, but not quite. “Felix, who is it?” Felix doesn't answer, of course, _of course_, but Sylvain keeps on. “Felix, _please_ tell me,” and he takes Felix's hand and Felix flinches—he can feel the tickle again. “I know I'm being a selfish jerk, but I need to know. I can't sit here watching you die and not _know_ who it is. I can't think what, what kind of _idiot_ you must love that they don't love _you_—“

And his hand spasms around Felix's, pulls back, and he tries for a second to rise from his chair but he's _coughing_ and Felix is looking at him, he's looking right at him now but Sylvain is hunched over the edge of the bed, fists knuckle-white in the blanket, and fuck oh_ fuck_ Felix knows what it sounds like when you're coughing up things you shouldn't, he does it often enough.

“_Sylvain_.” Felix is up now, not lying down but scrambled up onto his knees and leaning towards Sylvain, who has stopped coughing but won't lift his head. “Sylvain, look at me. _Sylvain_.” He looks up, slow, and for the first time in weeks Felix meets his eye and Goddess, he looks tired, he looks _sick_, why hasn't anyone noticed? There's spit and _blood_ on his chin, and Felix looks down and there on the blanket is a single, bloodied marigold.

An entire fucking blossom.

Felix can't breathe again, but this time it's not flowers but panic filling his throat, and he lifts a hand to his mouth and bites hard and lets the pain ground him even as Sylvain is reaching for his wrist to stop him. He slaps Sylvain's hand away and looks at him.

“Fix this,” Felix says, and Sylvain blinks at him. “Fix this, you idiot—whoever she is, go fix whatever you fucked up, I know you can, girls love you—“ Sylvain is shaking his head and damn it Felix has started to cry. “It's not _supposed_ to be contagious, you fool.” Sylvain actually chuckles and Felix wants to hit him.

“Well yeah, Unrequited Love isn't exactly catching. It's not your fault.” Goddess, it reassures and hurts at the same time, because it would be so easy to _fix_ if it was his fault. He reaches out anyways and wipes the blood off of Sylvain's chin because he can't stand to look at it, and Sylvain's eyes close and he sighs painfully.

“How long have you been hiding this, that's a whole—if you can't make it right with her, can't you get it removed?” There's pleading in his tone and he hates it, but he can't help it.

“_You_ didn't.”

“It's different,” and his voice is harsh. Sylvain just looks at him, steady.

“I doubt it,” Sylvain says, and then, “I guess I'm keeping our promise, huh?”

“Don't you—don't, fucking. You just said it's not my fault, don't—“ Sylvain catches him with hands on his cheeks and wipes away the tears on his face, and Felix shudders, feels that tickle turning into a flutter.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. You're tired, and I'm fucking everything up as usual.” Like Sylvain isn't tired, too, like he isn't _sick_, like a whole blossom hadn't worked it's way up out of his lungs onto Felix's bed a few minutes ago.

“Who is she?” he asks, even though the words feel like acid, tear his throat up worse than the flowers. Sylvain just shakes his head.

“You won't tell me who _you're_ dying over, so, no, I think not.”

“That's because it'll hurt you,” he sighs, eyes sliding shut as he frowns. He doesn't want to come back to this, he wants to help Sylvain, because Felix is a lost cause but Sylvain still has a chance. How could he not, he's _Sylvain_.

“Not nearly as bad as you dying,” Sylvain says, hot, “you dying and not knowing why. Just tell me. I can take it.” Felix smiles, and Sylvain's hands twitch against his cheeks. The flutter is a burn now.

“No, you can't,” he says, and he starts to cough, and it's like his fucking lungs are trying to climb up his throat with the flowers, as done with this shit as Felix is. He dimly registers Sylvain pulling him in, holding him while he spits bloom after bloom on his shirt, in his lap, and he really wouldn't mind if this was the big one except that it would be exceptionally cruel of him to die in Sylvain's arms.

When he finally stops, his breath is wet and rattling and Sylvain is sitting on the bed, Felix pulled across his lap so that that his side presses to Sylvain's chest as he props him in one arm, and their bodies make a bowl filled with little bloody flowers. Sylvain brushes hair out of Felix's face with shaking hands, and Felix just lies there half-dazed in his arms and lets him.

He opens his mouth to tell Sylvain he should leave, because he can tell it's not too long now, maybe a day or two, and he shouldn't have to be here. He shouldn't have to be here when Felix finally chokes to death, because it won't be pretty, not at all. But—

“Felix?” There's an odd, trembling quality to his voice, and Felix looks up at him, sharp and wary. Sylvain is looking at the flowers pressed between them, and he reaches with his free hand to pluck one from the mass. It's small and star shaped, five pink petals that pale to white in the center, and Felix doesn't know why it's important until, “Do you—you never studied flowers, did you—_Felix_.” He sounds scared, but when he meets Felix's eye there's understanding and: “Is, is it me? Am I... _Oh_.” Felix turns away, crushes his eyes closed like that could stop this from happening.

“I didn't want you to know,” and the way the words claw out of him it's like he's been spitting up gravel, or broken glass, not soft flower petals. He's waiting for what comes next, for Sylvain to be hurt, and it shocks him when Sylvain laughs.

“Felix. _Felix_. Oh, Felix, _fuck_, we're _so_ stupid,” and Sylvain is kissing his hair, his forehead and cheeks and nose and—

“_What_,” he manages, and Sylvain pulls him up with both arms and fuck, _fuck_ he's going to start coughing again for sure at the way he just _fits _there, head in the crook of Sylvain's neck like they're _made_ to slot together, but the tickle doesn't come because Sylvain presses another one of those desperate, laughing kisses next to his ear and just holds him.

“It's you, Felix, it's—there's no _girl_, it's _you_. And you—Goddess, all of that for me.” The laughter is gone, and Sylvain's hold on him goes too tight for a second, and Felix is still reeling because _there's no _girl_, it's _you. Sylvain leans back to look at him. “_I_ did this to you,” he says, shaky, thumb brushing at the dark splotch under Felix's eye, and Felix grabs his hand.

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t, you idiot,” he repeats when Sylvain starts to shake his head, and Felix is hardly even annoyed because for the first time all week he feels like he can _breathe_. “_I_ did this to me. I did it. I fell in love with you, that’s _me_.”

“But I could have stopped it if I just told you–”

“How were you supposed to _know_, Sylvain, I was purposely hiding it. Please just… it’s not your fault. This is exactly _why_ I was hiding, I didn't want you to think it was your fault; it’s _not_.” He brushes his hand up Sylvain's side, feels him shiver, and they really _are_ stupid. “Ingrid's going to kill me when she finds out why I'm not dying anymore.” Sylvain shudders and then laughs, leans down and kisses over Felix's eyelids one by one.

“I think His Majesty's first in line.” Shit, _Dimitri_— “Maybe don't tell him I was going to let myself die, too?” It's Felix's turn to shudder, their _promise_. To shake off the horrible thought that Sylvain would have followed him and they would have died so stupidly _together_ Felix leans back and pokes Sylvain in the chest with one finger.

“If I have to stay here and recover from this shit, _you're_ not getting out of doing it—“

“Think they'll let us share the room?” Felix sighs and starts to fire back but Sylvain cuts him off completely with, “I love you. Just to be clear.” Felix stares at him and feels himself go red, and it's so dumb considering everything, but Sylvain flustered him with such a simple, direct phrase. Sylvain smiles soft at him and it's real and perfect as sunrise. “Say it back?” Felix hadn't thought he could get redder, but his face feels like it's burning and he looks anywhere but Sylvain.

“That's—I don't—“ he sputters, and Sylvain sighs.

“Oh no, I feel a cough coming—“ Felix shoves him, gripping the front of his shirt to pull him back in.

“That's _not funny_—I love you. Alright?” Sylvain grins so wide Felix can't even be upset with him, and he leans down to kiss him but Felix puts a hand between their faces at the last second. Sylvain looks hurt for a moment, but Felix waves him back, still pink in the face as he looks for something to wipe the blood from his chin, water to rinse his mouth. “I am bloody and gross, let me clean up, I want the first one to be _good_—“

“Oh, shut up,” Sylvain says, voice cracking, and kisses him anyways, like he can give back every breath Felix choked over, licks into his mouth like it doesn't matter if his teeth taste of copper, and Felix doesn't give a fuck when he gets short of breath.

It's good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two will be a retelling from Sylvain's POV!
> 
> Flowers that appeared here in order, and their meanings afaik:  
-Jonquil: Desire for returned affection  
-Pink Camellia: Longing for you  
-Azalea: Take care  
-Nasturtium: Conquest, victory  
-Forget-me-not: Memories, true love  
-Purple Hyacinth: I'm sorry  
-Yellow Hyacinth: Jealousy  
-Marigold: Jealousy and Despair  
-Arbutus: I love only you
> 
> Find me on Twitter [@AceMorningStar](https://twitter.com/AceMorningStar)


	2. Marigold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is from Sylvain's POV, and is slightly different in that it is linear, unlike the previous chapter which goes back and forth between the present and past.  
  
The [beautiful art](https://twitter.com/GlendaMorganArt/status/1181755589585596416) my best friend drew for this

“It's _not_ Dimitri,” Felix is saying, and Sylvain aches. Felix looks _small_, and it's so wrong. He's pale and his eyes are shadowed and he looks fragile in the infirmary bed. “I've told you, I'm not _telling _you.” Sylvain can't trust himself to speak, because it's becoming more and more plain that Felix is seriously ill, so he lets Ingrid ask all the questions.

“This started when he got engaged,” she says, and Felix's eyes narrow. “Felix... you can tell _us_.” And Felix looks at Ingrid, and starts to look at Sylvain—but he doesn't make it to his face, and Sylvain's hands tighten on his crossed arms, Felix hasn't looked him proper in the face since they made him go to the healers. It's been two weeks since they confirmed he had terminal love-sickness and Felix had laughed mirthless at the phrasing, and stopped looking Sylvain in the face.

He thinks Felix is ashamed, and it's killing Sylvain that Felix thinks he would care.

“If it was Dimitri I would tell you, just to get you to drop it. _It's not Dimitri_.” The worst part is Sylvain believes him, and that means he has no idea who Felix is dying for.

“You won't see him at all,” Ingrid says, her voice small, because if it isn't Dimitri she has no idea who it is, either, and that's frightening. The three of them are supposed to know Felix best, and he's gone and fallen so much in love he's _dying_ and they don't even know who for. Felix tilts his head back and sighs, and Sylvain wants to smooth the wrinkles from his forehead and let him rest.

“Because he would just. He wouldn't be able to fix it and he would be insufferable. I don't want him using my death as an excuse to wallow in stupid misplaced guilt, he has a whole damn continent to run. It has nothing to do with him, anyways.”

“Then... is it Byl—“

“No!” Felix shouts, and then his hand is on his throat and Sylvain moves without thinking, because Felix is hurting and he just... he rests a hand on Felix's arm, trying to be there, to reassure, and Felix still won't look at him as he drinks the water Ingrid brought him.

“Felix,” he finally manages, and it's as gentle as possible, “who is it?”

_Tell me, tell _me_, I have to know who's done this, who's _ruining _you_—

“_Sylvain_,” and he sounds pained, his eyes closed tight, “please drop it.” And Felix, for just a second, relaxes toward him just a fraction... and then goes stiff and shoves Sylvain away, and he starts to cough.

It's a wet and retching cough, like he's choking, and Sylvain and Ingrid move to envelop him in their arms, and when he finally spits out the obstruction they stare down at the crumpled bloom in his palm before looking at each other in terror.

Whole blossoms are the end, whole blossoms mean it's _soon_, if things don't change.

Ingrid pulls him into herself as Sylvain pulls his hands back like he's been burned, backing away until he hits the wall. Felix is dying. He's really fucking _dying_.

“I'm tired,” Felix whispers against Ingrid's shoulder, his voice not his own, something awful. Sylvain covers his eyes with his fingers and presses hard, he can't cry now about this, he has to take care of Felix, because he loves him and Felix doesn't have anyone left. They're his family and—Sylvain drops his hands and looks at Ingrid and she's watching him, jaw clenched tight so it won't tremble, and he steps forward to help her.

They lay him down and make him comfortable, and it's so wrong how he _lets _them, not even a protest. Sylvain takes the spit and blood coated bloom from his palm and throws it in the trash while Ingrid wipes him clean, and Sylvain knows flowers because flowers get girls, and he thinks on jonquils for hours, even after they've left Felix under the eye of the healers.

_Desire for returned affection_, he thinks, and he also thinks if he doesn't find out who Felix is dying for, he might go crazy.

+

Felix has been telling them since the first day he'd been set up in a bed that they didn't have to come, but Sylvain has been there every day. As if he would stay away when Felix is sick and hurting—he would be angry at the suggestion if he didn't know Felix better, didn't know he hates anyone to see him vulnerable.

Felix doesn't even look _that_ sick, that's the kicker—he just looks tired, but they all look tired, they've all been so busy. It had been easy for everyone to overlook that Felix was unwell, for _Sylvain_ to overlook it. He might still have believed Felix was fine, if he didn't wind up coughing up petals at some point every time Sylvain saw him. At least it had never gotten as bad—yet—as what Ingrid had described seeing that first night, his hands absolutely coated in hyacinth.

Yellow hyacinth, Sylvain remembers with a little twist of his lips. No wonder Ingrid is so insistent that it's Dimitri Felix is dying over. But it's too narrow, there were so many people there that night, Felix could have been coughing up _jealousy_ over _anyone_ in the room.

And besides that, Sylvain likes to think that if it was Dimitri, he would know. He would have _seen_. He's known Felix as long as he can remember, considers the man his best friend, he would notice if Felix was in love with one of their friends. He's watched out for him for years, anyways, kept a close eye on him, and he's never really shown interest in anyone. For a little while Sylvain had thought there might be something with Annette, Felix was almost _sweet_ with her, but then he had realized it was just _Annette_—it was impossible to be anything _but_ sweet to her.

Eventually he had come to think that Felix wasn't interested in relationships at all, and that was fine, if a little sad, a little lonely, maybe. But he had been wrong, obviously, and it still stings, that he doesn't know, hadn't seen it, even though he knows Felix so well, is so close to him, has been their whole lives practically, has always been looking out and caring for him—

“Oh,” is all Sylvain can think to say when he starts coughing and spits a mouthful of purple petals into his hand. He leans against his desk and picks one out, holds it up to the light and—somehow—his hands don't shake.

It's soft purple, curled up like a little scoop, and he recognizes it; it was popular enough with the more romantic girls. Lilac. _First love_.

Goddess, he's so fucking stupid. He laughs, something low and mirthless, and he thinks about how terrible his timing is. Of course he had to wait until Felix was dying—dying because he loved someone who was _not Sylvain—_to realize what was going on.

+

No one has caught on, really, not Ingrid or even Dimitri.

He figures it's because he's not trying to hide it—they would have picked up on it if he was sneaky about it. It's not like he's coughing in front of them, he's not that bad yet, but he's not hiding that he's tired, or that he's feeling sick. Everyone chalks it up to Felix, and, well, they aren't _wrong_.

Sylvain wakes up most days coughing up orange lily petals, scattering them across his pillow. It makes him laugh, it's such a contradictory flower, desire or hatred; its meaning is all in the context of its delivery.

Considering he's dragging them up from his lungs for Felix, he thinks both meanings apply—he wants Felix, and he hates himself for being so stupid, so slow, for not realizing it years ago and winning Felix over before it got to this. Before Felix was dying over some idiot who didn't love him, didn't appreciate the gift that was Felix Hugo Fraldarius.

Maybe the lilies are for them, too, whoever they are; Felix still won't say.

+

Sylvain thinks about his options.

The obvious choice is to get it removed, because Felix is going to die, and it won't matter after that whether Sylvain loves him or is even fond of him, right? And it would be pretty fucked up, to let himself die right after Felix—Ingrid and Dimitri will need him, they will be upset, and adding himself onto their grief would be incredibly selfish.

But every time he thinks about it, about having all of his love for Felix removed, he thinks of their promise. Their silly, childhood promise that should have told him years ago that he was always in love with Felix. “Stay together until we die”. He hadn't meant it so much to mean they would die together, but that they wouldn't part while they lived. It had been a source of strength during the war, like a prayer, but the war is over and they aren't supposed to need prayers like that anymore.

He isn't supposed to worry every day about whether Felix will still be around tomorrow.

And, really, he tries to plan for it, tries to set in in his mind, that when Felix is in the ground Sylvain will come clean—if they haven't found him out yet, maybe they might—and he will have the operation and go on without Felix. He doesn't know who he will be, then, because Felix is so much a part of his makeup, but he would be there for Ingrid and Dimitri, and isn't that what counts?

But every time he thinks about it he just coughs up handful after handful of almond blossom petals, with their little scalloped edges, and their meaning of _promise _is a damnation.

+

He spends as much time as possible with Felix; he has duties, but their friends pick up as much of his slack as they can. He's always been closest to Felix, after Dimitri, and Sylvain knows they're hoping he'll be able to find out just who Felix is in love with. Maybe fix this. Or convince him to give up the flowers in his lungs, to let go of the love that's destroying him.

Sylvain had only brought it up once, and it was the closest Felix had come in weeks to looking at his face—he'd been furious and _pained_, and had demanded that Sylvain never speak of it again.

So he doesn't talk about it, spends his days with Felix talking about their friends, their childhoods, the Academy and even sometimes the war. He reads to him when Felix is tired, histories and strategy texts instead of knight tales. He sneaks in swords for him to clean and sharpen when he has the energy, because that has always soothed Felix's thoughts.

Today, though, they're talking about the White Heron Cup—it's Ethereal Moon, and Sylvain can't help thinking about things like the Garreg Mach ball and the Goddess Tower when he's watching Felix disappear. Chances he had missed, because he was an idiot.

“I just can't believe you didn't even come to the ball, after.”

“It was bad enough I had to dance like some idiot in front of the whole school—“

“You _won_! You won, and then you never even danced for us!”

“Sylvain, I'm a swordsman, not some sort of jester. There was no way I was going to wear that, that ridiculous costume in public—it could barely be _called_ an outfit.” Sylvain remembered having helped him into it that first night, because the Professor insisted he wear it at least once, and Felix was ready to tear the whole thing to shreds in frustration at the complicated drapes of cloth and expanses of bare skin.

Sylvain was so stupid, _so_ stupid, because Felix had been pink with embarrassed fury by the time they had gotten the costume on him, and he had threatened to murder Sylvain if he said a word but Sylvain had been, for once, entirely speechless. Goddess, he hates what a willfully blind idiot he's been—he had thought about Felix in that fucking dancer costume for weeks, and he had told himself it wasn't about _Felix_, it was just that Sylvain was a young man with a healthy sex drive and, well, Felix was gorgeous. It was purely hormones, surely!

Idiot.

“Well, it looked good on you. I still think it was a waste that you never danced after you went to so much trouble to win—I know it's because you can't stand losing, before you get all upset.” Felix startles him then with a cough, and he moves to put a supportive hand on his back as Felix spits bright blue petals across his hands. When the coughs subside Sylvain pulls a handkerchief from his pocket.

“Here,” he offers into Felix's shaking fingers, because he knows Felix won't appreciate being cleaned up, and Felix wipes spit and petals from his face and hands. Forget-me-nots, _memories_, and Sylvain hides his guilty grimace as he grabs a basin and a glass of water for Felix to rinse his mouth. The water comes out pink and petaled, and Sylvain presses his lips tight against an apology. It would just piss Felix off.

“Thanks,” Felix replies, and when he settles back down he looks anywhere but Sylvain. He's starting to think Felix doesn't want him around, doesn't want to be seen being weak and vulnerable. He can't stand the idea, but if Felix wants him to stay away... “You don't have to stay,” he says, like he read Sylvain's mind, but his voice is so soft and so tired. He doesn't sound like he's asking Sylvain to leave, more like he's releasing him. “I know you hate it.”

He does. It's torture, watching Felix so helpless and not being able to fix it, but he'll be damned if he turns away from him now.

"I'm not going anywhere, Felix." It comes out of his mouth hot, like an oath, and Felix turns away on his side and coughs again. Three rich, purple flowers tumble onto the blanket, wet with Felix's blood, and it takes all of Sylvain's willpower not to sweep him into his arms. It's only the knowledge that Felix would hate it, that he'd be taking advantage of his weakness, that stops him.

Felix is exhausted, anyways, and he lets Sylvain wipe his face clean and brush hair back behind his ears with no protest, just a look of tired, self-directed anger. Sylvain gets him settled and stops just short of tucking him in.

"Do you want me to read something?" He asks, and Felix sighs and still won't look at him.

"I think I'll sleep."

"Alright. I'll head out, then. I'll see you tomorrow," he adds pointedly, and Felix just nods and sinks further into his pillows in something like defeat.

+

It's easy, when he starts _actually_ hiding it. Sylvain has plenty of practice, after all, from years of hiding everything Miklan did, and years of hiding behind grins and flirts. He knows how to show just enough truth to make the lie _feel_ real, and Ingrid is good at seeing but she's focused on Felix now, and Felix would see through right away but he won't _look_ at Sylvain.

Felix _still_ won't tell them who it is. It's probably for the best, because Sylvain isn't sure what he'd do with the knowledge. Maybe that's why Felix won't say—he knows his friends would interfere. Sylvain knows that's a valid concern, he's hiding his own illness for that exact reason himself, but it still upsets him.

It's painful that Felix doesn't _trust _Sylvain.

He coughs an odd little trumpet shape into his hand, his first blossom, and the bell end is curled and crinkled. He unravels it gently, and finds himself holding a gloriously pink morning glory. He tries to laugh at that and only coughs up another, this time almost Blaiddyd blue.

_Love in vain_, and he knows, he _knows_.

That doesn't make it any easier, it's not as if he can just stop. Sylvain knows from three weeks of almond blossom reminders that he'll follow Felix, because he's never broken a promise to the man and he can't start now. He can't get rid of these feelings and remain _himself_.

Another cough wracks him, worse than the morning glories, and it's a clump of pale yellow that he spits into his palm, tinged with pink spit. He turns it and looks at the flower, each petal shaped like a heart, and he manages the laugh now. It's bitter, and stings in his throat, and he slides down the wall of his bedroom and his head hangs between his knees.

Primrose, a flower he had never given a girl, because it was much too serious and made it harder to break things off. Things like '_first love_' from lilacs were harmless, but '_I can't live without you_'?

The worst part is that it's true, this fucking sickness forcing him to spit up and confront every secret thing he's buried deep.

+

They're both very sick now, though no one has confronted Sylvain about it. Ingrid had tried, for a moment, but the look on his face and his tone when he'd reminded her Felix was dying had stopped her. Let her think it was just the impending loss of his best friend. Let her think it was heartsickness of a _normal_ sort.

He pulls his chair close to the edge of Felix's bed, and he curls his hands on the blanket as he looks over Felix's face. His eyes are set in dark bruises, and his lips are chapped from all the coughing and spitting, but he doesn't look _defeated_ yet. Sylvain's fingers twist and squeeze with open nervousness. He knows what he wants, what he needs, and he knows Felix won't tell him but he still has to ask.

“Felix,” he starts, and Felix's eyes settle on his throat and no higher, “Felix, who is it?” He doesn't answer, but Sylvain knew he wouldn't. “Felix, _please_ tell me.” He takes Felix's hand in his own and the flinch nearly kills him, starts a burning in his lungs and he hates himself but he can't stop now. “I know I'm being a selfish jerk, but I need to know. I can't sit here watching you die and not _know_ who it is. I can't think what, what kind of _idiot_ you must love that they don't love _you_—“

He feels the cough coming, this was such a stupid mistake, and his hand goes tight on Felix's before he pulls back and tries to get up, get out of the room so Felix won't have to worry about him. But he's let it go too long, and the coughing comes, and he winds up hunched over the edge of the bed, fists in Felix's blanket trying desperately not to slide to the floor as the coughs tear out of him. Felix says his name and it's flavored with terror, and Sylvain hates himself for doing this here.

It's a rough one, they've all been rough ones since that first primrose, but this one feels like thorns, and he's honestly surprised when a single, soft marigold falls out of his mouth onto the bed.

Fuck, he's pathetic, Felix is dying and he's spitting up _jealousy_, and more damning, _cruelty_—of _course_ he's being cruel, still pushing Felix about this when he's maintained his silence for this long. When has he ever _not_ been cruel? The blossom stares up at him, mockingly vibrant in its oranges and yellows and the red of his own blood, and Sylvain ignores entirely that marigolds also mean _grief_.

“Sylvain, look at me,” Felix says, and he's not lying down anymore but leaning towards Sylvain on his knees. Sylvain does not want to look, but Felix says his name again and it's like a plea and a command all at once. So he looks up, and Felix looks at him, looks at his_ face_ instead of his jawline or the air over his shoulder, really looks in his eyes. Sylvain feels a little pang of satisfaction that Felix looks upset at the state of him, and Sylvain's self-hatred never leaves, really. Felix looks down at the flower and exhales.

His eyes are glassy and he lifts his hand to his mouth, and Sylvain realizes what he's about to do before he does it—Felix slaps his hand away when he reaches for his wrist, and Sylvain fails to stop Felix from biting his own hand, teeth in the meat of his palm at the base of his thumb. His eyes go alert and determined before he breaks skin, thankfully.

"Fix this," he orders, staring at Sylvain, and Sylvain has no idea what he means. "Fix this, you idiot—whoever she is, go fix whatever you fucked up, I know you can, girls love you—" Sylvain can only shake his head because Felix is _crying_ and _Sylvain had not wanted this._ "It's not _supposed_ to be contagious, you fool." Sylvain can't help the chuckle that slips out, and he sees the anger flare and well, that's better than tears.

"Well yeah, Unrequited Love isn't exactly catching. It's not your fault." And it isn't, of course, because Felix doesn't exist purely to make Sylvain love him. Sylvain just does.

Felix reaches out and wipes Sylvain's chin with his hand, the blood and spit he knew was there, and he can't look at him when that one tender gesture burns him like a brand. He closes his eyes and his sigh hurts, because he's trying not to think about it and spit up another flower.

"How long have you been hiding this, that's a whole—if you can't make it right with her, can't you get it removed?" It's another plea, and Sylvain is proud that his bitterness doesn't reach his voice when he answers.

"_You_ didn't."

"It's different," Felix says, rough, and Sylvain can only look at him for a moment.

"I doubt it," he says. "I guess I'm keeping our promise, huh?" He doesn't know why he says it, but it's the wrong fucking thing, because Felix looks like he's been slapped and the tears start again.

"Don't you—don't, fucking. You just said it's not my fault, don't—" Sylvain catches his face, wipes the tears from his cheeks, and he feels Felix shudder under his palms.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. You're tired, and I'm fucking everything up as usual." Felix is still and watchful under his hands, and Sylvain wills himself to stillness, too, doesn't let his fingers move, just cups Felix's cheeks in his palms.

"Who is she?" Felix sounds tired, and Sylvain shakes his head.

"You won't tell me who _you're_ dying over, so, no, I think not."

"That's because it'll hurt you." It's a sigh, and he frowns, eyes closing. The very idea punches Sylvain in the gut.

"Not nearly as bad as you dying," and it pours out of his mouth like boiling water, "you dying and not knowing why. Just tell me. I can take it." Felix _smiles_, and Sylvain flinches.

"No, you can't." Felix starts coughing, and it's so violent he tumbles forward and Sylvain pulls him in, perching on the edge of the bed and holding Felix to his chest with one arm as he spits flower after flower after flower into the cup of their combined bodies.

When it stops, Felix's breath rattles and Sylvain is so scared—he is going to lose Felix very soon. His hands shake as he brushes the hair out of Felix's face, indulges himself in that little intimacy to soothe the trembles in his fingers. Felix doesn't protest, just lies there against his chest and breathes.

Sylvain looks to see what Felix had spit out, what new emotion the disease has put on display. They're small and star shaped, pink at their tips and white in their centers. It takes Sylvain a second, because these are even more dangerous than primrose, and he's sure he's wrong. Certain it's just wishful thinking.

"Felix?" he asks, and his voice trembles so that Felix looks up at him sharp. Sylvain plucks one of the flowers from between them, holds it up, and he was right. Goddess, they're sitting on Felix's bed covered in arbutus. "Do you—you never studied flowers, did you—_Felix_." He is so afraid of being wrong, but when his eyes meet Felix's he _knows_. Arbutus, _I love only you_, and he's not wrong, is he? "Is, is it me? Am I… _Oh._"

He isn't wrong.

Felix turns away with his eyes scrunched tight, grinds out, "I didn't want you to know." Sylvain thinks of how Felix had said knowing would hurt him, and he laughs, and Felix turns to him shocked.

"Felix. _Felix._ Oh, Felix, _fuck_, we're _so_ stupid." Sylvain kisses his hair, his forehead and cheeks, whatever he can reach as Felix turns in his arms.

"_What_?" Felix says as Sylvain pulls him upright against his chest, tucks him into the crook of his neck, and he feels Felix's ragged breath on his throat. Sylvain can't stop laughing, presses a kiss beside his ear and _holds_ him.

“It's you, Felix, it's—there's no _girl_, it's _you_.” The laughter drops out of him. “And you—goddess, all of that for me.” He can't help holding Felix closer, thinking of every flower Felix had pulled up from his lungs for Sylvain. Every bit of blood and spit and suffering. He leans away and looks at Felix's face, pale and thin and bruised. “_I _did this to you,” he says, shaky, thumb brushing at the dark splotch under Felix's eye, and Felix grabs his hand.

“No, you didn't.” Sylvain starts to shake his head, but Felix squeezes his hand. “You didn't, you idiot. _I_ did this to me. I did it. I fell in love with you, that's _me._” Sylvain knows Felix is right—hadn't Sylvain just been thinking the same thing moments ago? But it doesn't change the _guilt_ he feels for watching like a fool all these weeks while Felix suffered.

“But I could have stopped it if I just told you—“

“How were you supposed to _know_, Sylvain, I was purposely hiding it. Please just... it's not your fault. This is exactly why I was hiding, I didn't want you to think it was your fault; it's _not_.” Felix's hand brushes up Sylvain's side, and he shivers, because it's soft and affectionate and _he can have this_. “Ingrid's going to kill me when she finds out why I'm not dying anymore,” Felix adds, and Sylvain shudders at how flippantly he mentions his near-death. Still, he laughs and leans down to kiss Felix's eyelids, one by one.

“I think His Majesty's first in line. Maybe don't tell him I was going to let myself die, too?” Felix shudders against him, his face dark, and he leans away and pokes a bony finger into the center of Sylvain's chest.

“If I have to stay here and recover from this shit, _you're_ not getting out of doing it—“

“Think they'll let us share the room?” Sylvain interrupts, because of course he's going to let himself be fussed over and nursed back to health; he has to if he wants to make sure Felix does the same. Felix sighs at him and opens his mouth to say something, but Sylvain heads him off. “I love you. Just to be clear.” Might as well be safe, he can't chance Felix second-guessing things. Felix stares at him, red and flustered, and Sylvain smiles soft. “Say it back?” Felix goes redder, looks away, eyes darting around, and Sylvain should have known better.

“That's—I don't—“ he sputters, and Sylvain sighs because Felix has always had trouble with things like this. He's got to take him off the spot, and the best way to do that:

“Oh no, I feel a cough coming—“ Felix shoves him, annoyance erasing embarrassment, and grips the front of Sylvain's shirt to pull him back close.

“That's _not funny—_I love you. Alright?” Sylvain grins so wide it hurts his cheeks and he doesn't give a shit, because Felix is pink and looking at him so _seriously_, and he leans down to kiss him. Felix puts a hand between their faces just before their mouths meet, and Sylvain _hurts_ before Felix waves him back and casts his eyes around the room. “I am bloody and gross, let me clean up, I want the first one to be _good—_“

Sylvain does not care about blood on his chin or in his mouth, they are sitting in a pile of spit-and-blood-soaked flowers that declare Felix _loves him_, they have been on battlefields together, this is _nothing_. He won't let something so small keep him from this.

“Oh, shut up,” he says, and his voice cracks, and he kisses Felix like he needs it more than air, licks into his mouth because if he tastes like blood it's because he's _alive_, and Felix kisses him back so fervent Sylvain never wants him to stop.

Of course it's good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Find me on Twitter [@AceMorningStar](https://twitter.com/AceMorningStar)


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